Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-10-10

| IOunu you out III GiIne-sO cdlIn' u
cool and so fixed in your way. And
I'll never, never 90 and live in youl
old prlson-house, - | cried, growing
angrier and angrier, heaven only
knows why. "And you may whistle
for your dog and go there alone.
never want to see your face again.
And before he could grasp me and
prevent me I flashed into the house
and shut and bolted the door.
/ He waited then; he wanted
should think an hour. And 1 sat in
side, burning with anger, and with
! an unconscious sense of shame very
likely, and a wild disappointment and
a wild, unnamed fear. At last he
rose slowly and looked at the win
dows and turned away and called old
Roland, and went slowly down the
lane, and he never came back.
could see him walking along, ever SO
slowly, in the clear moonlight, with
the dogs nose in his hand till the
road turned into the wood that mount
ed the hill. And when he had gone
I just threw myself on to the floor
and all but dissolved in my mad tears.
And | didn't know what the tears
were fOr-whether for fear of losing
Mark, or for fear of losing my home,
or for fear of giving up my will; but
it seemed to me that the end of the
world had as good as come.
We were both orphans, we both
had these great properties, and we
both better have been beggars.
That was June, and the full moon.
[ didn't sleep any that night hard
ly know why; presentiment OF evil
kept waking me, although | was so
tired. l remember that moon now,
hanging in the purple sky with her
wide wings, like a great boding ghost.
Every time l looked out, there she
was. By and by she began to fright
en- me and / shut her out, but lay
awake just the same, and my mind
in wild whirl.
The next evening, in the long af-
ter glow Of the sunset,I tripped down
the lane into the wood, sure that l
would meet him, as l always had
done, on his way to me, but the shape
that | had been used to see bounding
down the path / did not see again.
| went close to the shadow of the
wood. but only old Roland came
and put his nose in my hand, and
waited while l waited, and went back
with me when l went back. 1t did
not occur to mo to think that where
Roland was his master was not far
distant. And | went down the lane
no more.
After that, then, one day crept by
and another, and life continued in
the old way, and all the business of
the great farm thrlved in the hands
of Bryan, the directing overseer, all
seemed to me mere idleness. The
moving machines were moving all
dav in the meadows, and the huge
loads of fragrant hay came laborlng
into the barns, and thunder clouds
made panics, and lightnings fell as it
always did on the wet, low grounds,
and burned one or two haystacks
and then the gundelows went down
the river for the salt hay and came
back, DAYS afterward with their dark,
square sails atop Of their square loads
of thatch; and one by one all the
concerns of ripening and harvesting
had their seasons, and passed, and
August was over. And Mark had
never once been up the lane again
and September had gone and the
harvest moon. and the hunters moon
had poured its silver floods out of
great, lonely heaven, and still Mark
had never come.
| suppose Mrs. Wells, my next
neighbor. knew all about it. And
Mrs. SAWYER on the other side of
course knew all that Mrs. Wells did.
They were good to me, and they and
the girls were always running in to
see me or sending for me to run in
and see them. / don't think / was
trying to carry off things with high
hand, and / know / wasn't hanging
my head and crying over what was
not to be helped; | simply made up
my mind to the inevitable. / was
never going to have Mark beside
me any more, and | must endure it
and get through life as well as l
could. l had tins farm on my hands,
and all the people who had their liv-
ing from it, and | must do my duty.
And perhaps in time fate would be
kinder and give me fever or a cough
and let me lie down and die; and he
would come then and look on me, ,and
how / had loved him and
be sorry. And thinking how sorry
ne would be was a joy / hugged to
my heart and the only joy l had.
But / used to long so sometimes
to see Marks dear face again, to
hear his voice, just to lay my head
on his shoulder and cry my ewes out
there. Sometimes it used to seem TO
me that / couldn't live another min
ute if l didn't run down the lane and
through the lane in the wood to the |
house on the rock and find him and
beg him to forgive me-forgiye, oh,
not just that burst Of temper, but the
whole rebellion of nv saul-and l